


Hold On To That Feeling

by Aderam



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Coming Out, M/M, Pre-Movie(s), Yuletide 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5466854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aderam/pseuds/Aderam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen knows he's got a problem. Jolene knows he's over-reacting. Pooch knows that he knows, you know? Clay knows his team. Roque knows something, at least. </p><p>And Cougar. - Well Cougar's the problem, you know?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold On To That Feeling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AngeNoir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/gifts).



**1\. Jensen Knows That He's Got a Problem**

The new guy was going to be a problem.

Jensen hadn't met the new guy yet, but that didn't matter. He had acquired a copy of the new guy's file, and the new guy – Carlos Alvarez – was a registered Guide.

And okay, being a Guide wasn't exactly all that unusual. There were loads of them around and the military actively recruited them so they'd have lots of trained personnel on hand to work with the much less common, much more valuable Sentinels.

And Jensen wasn't Guide-phobic. Honestly. Some of his best friends were Guides, and it was only a little bit creepy when they could see right through all his deflection techniques.

No. The problem was that Guides, once they'd spent enough time with him, could always tell that Jensen was a Sentinel.

Jensen liked being a Sentinel. He could read the over the shoulder of someone reading comics on the other side of an airport lounge. He could listen to the soothing buzz-click-whir of a bank of servers he was hacking from the building next door. And there was nothing better than turning up his sense of taste while eating a soft pretzel the size of his head. Patting his niece's cat was like a religious experience – silky soft fur, the vibrations of her purr in his hands and ears, and blood all over his hands when he inevitably zoned and the vicious little bitch decided she'd had more than enough.

Being a Sentinel was cool. Being a registered Sentinel was less cool. Military Sentinels were too valuable an asset not to use. So military Sentinels were used. They got even less down time than the Losers and there was always something strange about them, like they spent so much time with their senses amped up they couldn't help analyzing your skin cells instead of looking you in the eye. The military Sentinels Jensen had met always looked about two seconds away from a zone. In theory they could leave the service when their tours were up just like everyone else, but in practice Sentinels only ever left the military through medical discharge.

Sometimes Jensen wondered why he'd ever decided to join the military in the first place, but this was the only job he could find where he got paid to hack government databases and fire a gun. So really, there was no contest.

Jensen loved being a military tech with the Losers. He had no intention of being a military Sentinel wherever they decided to send him. And the new guy – whatever-his-name-was Alvarez – was going to ruin everything.

 

**2\. Jolene Knows That Jensen is Over-reacting**

Pooch answered the door to Jolene's apartment after a full minute of Jensen's frantic knocking. He was wearing a collared shirt and half of the buttons were done up in the wrong button holes. Neither had expected to see the other when the door opened. They stared at each other for a minute, Jensen's attention caught on the miss-matched buttons and his hand still raised to knock. Slowly a manic grin began to creep over his face. Fear was the only sane response to that look on Jensen's face and Pooch's eyes widened in response.

“Jensen, man,” he started, arms raised in defence or surrender. “Please. She only just agreed to go out with me last week –”

“Last week?” Jensen repeated, pushing into the apartment. “My you have been a busy boy. Tell Uncle Jensen all about how you're already staying the night.”

“How do you - ?” Pooch stammered. “It's like 1600.”

“Who's at the door?” Jolene's voice saved Pooch's Beggin' Strips as she moved down the short hall from the living room.

“It's me,” Jensen called out with a pointedly raised eyebrow to his teammate.

“Jensen,” Jolene said as she rounded the corner. Her expression was both concerned and unimpressed which was her default reaction to Jensen appearing on her doorstep unannounced. Unlike Pooch, she was properly dressed, a soft looking blue sweater and a pair of jeans. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Jo-Jo! I think the more interesting question is what is Pooch doing here?” Jensen redirected, reaching behind himself to shut the door.

Jolene rolled her eyes. “You're the one who introduced us,” she pointed out crossing her arms over her chest. “You don't get to pretend this wasn't what you were hoping for.”

Pooch rubbed a self-conscious hand across the back of his neck and averted his eyes. Jensen could almost see the blood rushing to his cheeks in embarrassment, capillaries filling and spreading a red tint across Pooch's skin.

Jolene snapped her fingers in front of Jensen's face, drawing his attention back to her. “Focus,” she said firmly her voice taking on what Jensen had come to realize was her Guide voice.

Was he really that distracted right now? Jensen shot a quick look back at Pooch to see if he'd noticed anything, but he was still too busy being embarrassed.

Jolene widened her eyes at him pointedly and Jensen could tell he was only being saved from a lecture by Pooch's presence.

He knew that introducing Pooch and Jolene was a good idea.

“Jensen,” she said, “is there a reason why you've shown up at my door?”

“A reason?” Jensen asked plastering on his most innocent grin. “Do I need a reason to visit one of my oldest friends?”

Jolene crossed her arms over her chest.

“I certainly don't need to be having a crisis to come see you,” Jensen's mouth was starting to get away from him, but he couldn't seem to stop it. “And there's no way that I'm freaking out about our new team member. No – today is just a normal day in Jensen-land. And I thought to myself – self, we should go and see Jolene because she's pretty cool and won't judge us for our not-at-all happening freak out.”

“We have a new team member?” Pooch asked, latching onto the only intelligible part of Jensen's verbal diarrhea.

“That is so not the point, Pooch,” Jensen said and then blinked twice, slowly. “Okay so that is exactly the point,” he acknowledged.

“Pooch, babe,” Jolene interjected before Jensen could dig himself any deeper. “ I hate to do this, but can we cut this short?”

Pooch looked like he wanted to protest, sending a concerned look in Jensen's direction, but whatever he saw in his teammate's expression made him decide to back off. “Okay,” he said and leaned over to give Jolene a familiar kiss on the cheek. “We still on for dinner on Friday?”

Jolene smiled softly and Jensen could hear her heart beating more quickly in anticipation – ah, young love. “I'll see you then,” she said.

Pooch grinned, wide and unabashed as he grabbed his shoes. Even his concern over Jensen couldn't dent his happiness, but he raised an eyebrow at Jensen as he left which promised that they would talk later.

Honestly, the Losers were crap at personal boundaries and Jensen was crap at keeping secrets, it was a wonder that the team didn't already know he was a Sentinel.

“Alright,” Jolene said after the door had shut behind Pooch. “I'm making us tea.”

Jensen followed her into the kitchen and watched quietly as she plugged in the electric kettle. She deftly pulled down two miss-matched mugs, ceramic chinking softly off the formica counter top, and tossed in a couple of teabags without asking Jensen's opinion. It was a generic orange pekoe blend which smelled strongly even before it started steeping. Jensen only ever drank it when he was with Jolene and he found the whole process soothing. He took a deep breath, smelling all the familiar comfort of Jolene's tiny apartment kitchen and grabbed the milk out of the fridge for their tea.

Jolene waited for the kettle to boil before saying anything, pouring the hot water over their teabags and carrying their mugs to the kitchen table before pinning Jensen with a knowing look.

“So,” she started. “What is it about this new teammate that has you so freaked out that you had to come over here and interrupt a really good date?”

Jensen looked down at his tea instead of meeting Jolene's eyes. There was an air bubble in the tea bag so Jensen pinched the corner between his thumb and fore-finger, ignoring the slight burn of the still-hot water, and began dunking the bag slowly up and down.

“He's a registered Guide,” he muttered quietly into his tea.

Jolene was quiet for a moment, processing.

“Jensen,” she said finally. “I'm a registered Guide.”

Jensen looked up quickly, meeting Jolene's even gaze.

“Yeah, but -” he stuttered. “But you're different.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“You are,” he insisted. “I trust you. And you're not a military Guide. Those guys – and girls -” he added quickly, “they're taught to be on the look-out for Sentinels. They're fed some BS about joining up and finding their perfect Sentinel match, working together to save the world or some shit. He'll figure out about me, and then he'll tell the brass, and then it's bye-bye Losers, and bye-bye comm-tech, and hello whatever creepy things they want to do with me.”

“Jensen,” Jolene interrupted before he could get completely carried away. “First off, you're not an alien. They're not going to dissect you. You know that I support you and if you don't want to out yourself to the military I will help you keep your secret,” she reached over and grabbed one of Jensen's hands. “Ignoring for the moment that I don't think it will be as bad as you think if it does come out – at least to your team,” Jolene held up a finger to stop the protest bubbling up Jensen's throat. “What makes you think that they'd take you away from the Losers? Sentinels and Guides don't work alone, and if you already have a team you've worked with there'd be no reason to split you up. And I know you've been avoiding military Guides your whole carrier, how do you know that they're all are like that? Did this guy get registered before or after he enlisted?”

Jensen's gaze slid quickly to the side and then back to Jolene. “I didn't check for that,” he admitted.

Jolene smiled, “Of course you didn't. You just saw the word 'Guide' and came running over here in a panic.”

“At most a manly state of alarm,” Jensen protested.

“Whatever, sugar. Where's your laptop? We need to go through this guy's file and do a proper threat assessment.”

Jensen smiled. “Jolene,” he said reaching under his chair for his ever-present laptop bag. “You are a goddess among women.”

 

**3\. Pooch Knows That He Knows, You Know?**

The new guy was definitely a problem.

It had been three months and nearly as many missions since their new sniper – Cougar-not-Carlos – had joined the team and he fit in. He worked well with the other Losers and seemed to fit in as if he were a piece they hadn't known they were missing. 

He hadn't said anything to Jensen about his status as a registered Guide, or Jensen's as an unregistered Sentinel, but then again he hadn't really said much of anything at all. He was quiet to the point of being a functional mute. And Jensen could tell that he was in trouble because for some reason that didn't bother him.

Jensen had never encountered an awkward silence he couldn't make worse by opening his mouth. Cougar on the other hand was a master at communicating through meaningful silences.

Jensen found himself staring at the other man in a way he tried really hard not to do with his teammates. For some reason Jensen's senses were going haywire around the other man. Sometimes it was useful, like on their last mission when Jensen had been able to hear their would-be ambushers heartbeats before the Losers were in any kind of danger, something he had not been able to do before. But more often it resulted in Jensen zoning in the mess-hall watching Cougar eat ice cream, or not being able to sleep because he literally couldn't stop himself from listening to his teammate in the shower.

This whole Cougar situation was getting out of hand.

Pooch found Jensen with his head down on his desk in the barracks, forehead resting on his laptop and the cursor blinking accusingly from the screen.

“You okay man?” Pooch asked, pulling his own chair over and straddling the back so that he was facing his friend.

“This is it, Pooch,” Jensen said without lifting his head. “I don't think I can go on any longer. Remember me when I've been kicked out of the Losers.” Jensen looked up at Pooch. There was a huge pink crease on his forehead from the edge of his laptop. “I don't care how good he is, tell my replacement that he'll never live up to my standards.”

“You're not going to be kicked out of the Losers,” Pooch said with as much reassurance as he could muster.

Jensen just sighed, “I wouldn't count on that Dog-man. There's something you don't know about me.”

“Jensen,” Pooch said with very large, earnest and supportive eyes. “It's okay. I know. And I support you.”

“Oh thank god,” Jensen said, his whole body sagging in relief. “Jolene's been telling me that I should tell you guys that I'm a Sentinel for ages, but –”

“Wait,” Pooch interrupted, furrowing his brow. “You're a Sentinel?”

Jensen stared at Pooch. “You just said you knew!” he exclaimed.

“That was not the thing that I knew.”

“Then tell me what you know.”

“But now I'm worried that I don't know the thing that I knew,” Pooch said. 

Both men stopped for a minute in confusion.

“You're really a Sentinel?” Pooch asked.

“Yeah,” Jensen said. “Why did you think I get distracted and focus in on weird things all the time?”

“I don't know,” Pooch admitted. “I always assumed it was the ADHD.”

“You thought I had ADHD?”

“You don't?”

“No!” Jensen said, indignant. “Honestly, what is the world coming to that every arm-chair psychologist is ready to diagnose a guy just because he's a little hyper...”

“But really,” Pooch said derailing Jensen's train of thought before it could pick up any speed. “you're a Sentinel. That's so cool. Is it all your senses?”

“Yeah, but mostly sight and hearing,” Jensen admitted. He rubbed a hand over his face and then pointed an accusing finger at his friend. “Stop trying to change the subject! – What did you think that you know you knew?” He winced at the phrasing. “You know what I mean.”

“I know,” Pooch smirked and Jensen glared at him to get to the point. “Don't be offended, man, but I kinda thought you were about to come out.”

“Yeah,” Jensen said slowly, “I did just came out. As a Sentinel.”

“As gay, you idiot!” Pooch had the 'are-you-actually-dumber-than-I-thought?' look on his face. Jensen didn't think that was really fair.

Jensen scrunched up his face in confusion. “Well I'm more of an equal opportunity kinda guy, but I thought you all already knew that. How would that get me kicked out of the Losers?”

“Um,” Pooch said incredulously, “Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell is a thing, dude.”

“Oh,” Jensen conceded. “Right. That's a thing I probably should have been worrying about, isn't it?”

Pooch shook his head with a rueful grin, but then his eyes widened as he realized something. “Wait – Sentinel – is that why you're so weird around Cougar? 'Cause he's a Guide? Do you have a secret thing going on? Is that why you're not registered?”

Jensen blinked. He didn't know where to start answering. He had way too many reasons to be weird around their new team member, starting with him being a Guide who had never once mentioned that he knew Jensen was a Sentinel, and ending with how easy and soothing it was to zone on the steady rhythm of his breathing. His Sentinel senses were constantly amping up around the other man and he hadn't felt this out of control of his own body since puberty.

Pooch watched as Jensen's mouth opened and no sound came out. “Wow,” he said. “I feel like I should be recording this for posterity or something. Speechless Jensen – Jolene is never going to believe me.”

“Fuck off, Pooch,” Jensen said without any real heat, lowering his head back onto the desk. “I'm having a crisis here.”

“Aw, buddy,” Pooch said laying a hand on Jensen's shoulder. “Tell the Pooch everything and we'll figure out what to do about your man.”

“I should never have introduced you to Jolene,” Jensen muttered into the table. Pooch just smiled in response.

 

**4\. Clay Knows His Team**

The mission was going tits up in a truly impressive way. Intel had definitely not said anything about those fifty guys with AKs. If they all got out of this alive Jensen was going to have a word with the intel guys – or at very least their servers.

“Abort! Abort!” Clay yelled into the radio from where he and Jensen were taking cover behind an improbably purple station wagon. “Meet at rendezvous delta – acknowledge.”

Pooch and Roque's acknowledgements came through swiftly and Jensen added his between hails of bullets.

There was nothing from Cougar.

Clay and Jensen exchanged a look and winced in unison as an explosion took out another car further down the block. Thank god for the bad aim of cheep mercenaries.

“Cougar, acknowledge,” Clay clicked through his radio.

Jensen held his breath waiting for the reply. The last they'd heard from Cougar he'd had to move to his secondary sniper point. It wasn't unusual for them to go an entire mission without hearing more that a few words from him, but he always acknowledged unless there was something wrong.

He didn't acknowledge.

“Jensen,” Clay said forcefully, dragging Jensen's attention back to the Colonel. He hadn't realized that his breathing had sped up so much. Clay raised his eyebrows pointedly. He had really impressive eyebrows. “Jensen,” he repeated, “where's Cougar?”

“What?” Jensen said, panic rising as they ducked reflexively from another round of bullets. “How should I know?”

“Jensen,” Clay said and Jensen had no idea when Clay's voice had become a calming influence on him – it was probably some kind of Stockholm Syndrome. “Where is Cougar.” His eyebrows were doing some sort of complicated dance that Jensen was probably supposed to understand, but – oh. Oh.

Well shit.

“Jensen,” Clay gripped his arm grounding him. Right. Clay knew. Cougar needed him. Everything was shit. No time for panic. “Can you find him?”

Jensen always kept track of the team when he could on missions, but it was different with Cougar. All Jensen had to do was listen and it was like his hearing would hone in on Cougar's heartbeat.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Filtering out the hectic noise of the battle around them he concentrated on finding the familiar sound of Cougar's heartbeat.

“There!” Jensen said turning abruptly in Cougar's direction. He could hear his heartbeat, steady but slow, probably unconscious.

Clay pulled Jensen back under cover before he could be taken out by a stray bullet, and quickly told the others that they were going to get Cougar and would meet them at the rendezvous point.

“Come on, Jensen,” he said. “Let's go get our boy.”

**5\. Roque Knows Something, At Least**

“Stop staring at Cougar's ass,” Roque said smacking Jensen on the back of his head. Jensen had never been knocked out of a zone by brute force before, but he wasn't surprised. Roque was an expert at finding new applications for brute force.

“What? Why?” Jensen replied automatically while next to him Pooch straightened bristling with protective instincts.

Cougar and Clay continued unloading their latest supply truck across the parking lot and well out of non-Sentinel ear-shot. Cougar bent over to pick up another box and Jensen nearly zoned again.

“We all know you're too chicken-shit to do anything about it,” Roque continued derisively, his voice pulling Jensen's focus back as effectively as his hand had a moment earlier. “So put the rest of us out of our misery and stop mooning. Shit or get off the pot.”

“That -” Jensen stuttered, “that is so not the right imagery.”

Pooch's tense shoulders started shaking with repressed chuckles. Roque rolled his eyes.

 

**6\. Cougar Already Knew (He just didn't say anything)**

When Jensen woke up it was to the sound of Cougar's voice. He felt like he was floating, disconnected from his body, wrapped in cotton balls. Distantly he could feel Cougar's hand wrapped tightly around his own and the details of the room started to filter in; the soft warmth of sunlight streaming through a crack in the dark curtains; cheap cotton sheets on the bed. This wasn't like any of military hospitals he'd seen.

“Come on, Jake,” Cougar said, voice hoarse like he'd been speaking for a long time. And right, that's what had woken him up: Cougar had been speaking this whole time. What was it he was saying?

“Come back,” Cougar continued. “You are the stupidest man I have ever met and if you don't wake up soon I'll –” Cougar choked and didn't finish the thought, muttering quietly to himself in Spanish that Jensen couldn't understand. “Honestly what kind of Sentinel opens up all his senses like that in the middle of a fire-fight? If Pooch hadn't been there when you zoned... Did you learn nothing about yourself in those fancy New England schools? How many degrees do you have and you never once thought to research your own abilities? I don't understand you. How can you be so smart and so stupid?”

Jensen didn't think that was fair. He'd only ever finished one degree and that was mostly by accident.

“Tell me –” he ground out, his voice was even worse than Cougar's. How long had he been out? “Tell me how you really feel Cougs.”

“Jake!” Cougar exclaimed and the hand not holding Jensen's moved up to cup his cheek gently. It felt good. Maybe Jensen could try opening his eyes, but that seemed like a lot of work.

The last thing Jensen remembered was the mission. They'd been sent somewhere in the Middle East he'd never heard of before to take out some gun runners – or was it extremists? – Extremist gun runners? That sounded right. Fuck Jensen hated sand.

His head was pounding, but he didn't feel like he'd been shot or otherwise seriously injured. He opened his eyes, squinting into the gloom of the room. Cougar's face was hidden under the shadow of his hat.

“Don't clam up on me now, Cougs,” Jensen croaked slowly squeezing Cougar's hand. “What happened?”

Cougar swore. “You zoned,” he said quietly.

“I've done that...” Jensen started to say but Cougar interrupted him.

“You zoned twenty-four hours ago,” he said.

“What? No,” Jensen blinked up at Cougar, trying to focus in on his face. He looked tired and grim. “The longest I've ever zoned is – is twenty minutes.”

Cougar shook his head. “It's been over a day. You had your senses wide open when the armory blew. If you hadn't woken up, Clay was going to call in the Sentinel Center.”

Jensen blanched and opened his mouth to protest but the only sound that came out was something between a groan and a croak.

Cougar shushed him. “We didn't call them. We're still the only ones who know.”

Jensen let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Cougar's hand was still on his cheek. It felt nice.

“We have to talk about this, Jake,” Cougar said and Jensen widened his eyes in surprise. “Yes talk,” Cougar continued firmly correctly guessing what had surprised Jensen. “You don't have to register with the Center, but I won't watch you do this to yourself because you won't talk about the important things. You're my Sentinel, and...”

Jensen made another croaking sound and cleared his throat reaching up with his free hand to grab gracelessly at Cougar's shoulder. “Say that again,” he managed.

Cougar leaned in close so Jensen could see him clearly even in the low lighting, Cougar's long hair framing both their faces. “You're mine, Jensen,” he said smirking.

Jensen grinned as much as he could manage with his head still pounding and pulled Cougar down for an uncoordinated but heartfelt kiss. His skin felt tight and sensitive from the zone and he gasped at the feel of Cougar's stubble against his lips. He wasn't sure how long it lasted, but he groaned when Cougar tried to pull away.

“Stay,” Jensen croaked. “I feel better already.” He shifted slightly on the bed, trying ineffectively to pull Cougar in beside him.

“I have to tell the others you're awake,” Cougar whispered, but he didn't release his grip on Jensen's hand.

“Stay,” Jensen repeated and pulled Cougar back in for another kiss.

There was a shuffling from the vague direction of the door and a startled “oh!” as Pooch's eyes adjusted to the gloom.

Cougar snorted in amusement, but didn't move away from Jensen.

“Glad to see you're okay!” Pooch said with embarrassed cheerfulness, backing out and shutting the door behind him.

Jensen grinned into Cougar's neck.

“No more secrets, huh?” he whispered hoarsely.

“No more secrets,” Cougar agreed, climbing gently into the bed beside him.

“Roque!” they heard Pooch yelling from the other room. “You owe me a hundred dollars!”

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to AngeNoir for the excellent prompts! This story wanted to be way bigger than I had the time for, so I hope I managed to do it justice and that you like it!
> 
> I had so much fun thinking up how this world would work. Come talk to me in the comments about Jensen's weird Sentinel-related hang-ups!
> 
> *Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell wasn't repealed until Sept 2011, which is definitely after the timeline for this fic - nebulously before the movie in 2010.
> 
> ETA: YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING. Thanks for all the kudos and comments - this is by far my most kudosed fic and it's not even a month old yet. Come and say hi on [Tumblr](http://aderam.tumblr.com/).


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